Compare methods

	Model Disability Survey	Environmental Barriers Measurement
Field	Disability Studies	Disability Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2022	2001
Originator	World Health Organization and World Bank (Model Disability Survey collaboration)	World Health Organization (ICF environmental factors); methodology elaborated by Whiteneck and colleagues
Type	General-population survey operationalizing the ICF biopsychosocial model of functioning	General methodological strategy for measuring ICF environmental factors as barriers and facilitators
Seminal source	Sabariego, C., Fellinghauer, C., Lee, L., et al. (2022). Generating comprehensive functioning and disability data worldwide: development process, data analyses strategy and reliability of the WHO and World Bank Model Disability Survey. Archives of Public Health, 80, 6.	World Health Organization. (2001). International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: ICF. Geneva: WHO. ISBN: 9789241545426
Aliases	MDS, WHO Model Disability Survey, Metric Disability Continuum Survey, ICF-Based Functioning Survey	ICF Environmental Factors Assessment, Barrier-Facilitator Measurement, Environmental Factors Measurement Strategy, Participation Environment Assessment
Related	3	3
Summary	The Model Disability Survey is a general-population survey developed jointly by the World Health Organization and the World Bank to generate comprehensive, internationally comparable data on functioning and disability. Unlike instruments that classify people as disabled or not, it operationalizes the biopsychosocial model of the WHO ICF, treating disability as the outcome of an interaction between a person's intrinsic capacity and the environment in which they live. The survey collects detailed self-reported information on how much difficulty people have across many domains of functioning, distinguishing what a person can do in a standardized environment (capacity) from what they actually do in their own environment (performance), and it separately measures environmental barriers and facilitators. As documented by Sabariego and colleagues in 2022, these responses are combined using a Rasch measurement model into a single metric scale, so that disability is represented as a continuum running across the whole population rather than as a yes/no category. The result is a graded picture of functioning suited to prevalence estimation, equity analysis, and policy on a comparable metric.	Environmental barriers measurement is the general methodological strategy for assessing the environmental-factors component of the WHO ICF, which conceives disability as the product of an interaction between a person and the world they inhabit. Rather than a single questionnaire, it is an approach: enumerate the relevant environmental domains defined by the ICF — products and technology, the natural and built environment, support and relationships, attitudes, and services, systems, and policies — and then characterize each factor by its valence (whether it acts as a barrier or a facilitator) and its extent. Because the ICF treats the environment as something that can either hinder or help, the strategy deliberately measures both negative and positive influences rather than only obstacles. The assessed factors are then linked statistically to participation outcomes, and the deeper aim is to model the interaction between a person's capacity and their environment, so that the disabling or enabling role of context can be estimated. Specific instruments such as the Craig Hospital Inventory of Environmental Factors are particular realizations of this broader strategy.